Acknowledgements Authors' Foreword Introduction: The Problems of Matter-Theory Part 1: Possible WorldsI. Crafts and Rituals The Sources of our Knowledge The Artificial Crafts in Antiquity The Natural Arts Ritual and Cosmology Technique and Understanding 2. First Principles The New Climate of Thought The Problem of Change The Raw Materials of the World The Ultimate Units The Debate is Thrown Open 3. Atoms and Organisms 4. Likely Stories Plato's Theory of Matter Aristotle's Conception of Science Aristotle's Functional Matter-Theory The Inheritance of the Psyche 5. The Breath of Life The Stoic Theory of the Pneuma Stoic Cosmology and Religion The Scientific Legacy of the Stoics The End of an Era Galen demonstrates the Function of the Kidney6. The Redemption of Matter The Transition to Alexandria The Transformation of Greek Philosophy The Craft Element in Alchemy The Aims and Axioms of Alchemical Theory The Wider Influences of Alchemy Chemical Recipes from the Alchemical Period7. The Debate Reopens The Inheritance from Antiquity Three Transitional Figures: William Harvey J. B. van Helmont René Descartes The Implications of Mechanism Part II: The Activities of the Inanimate8. Atomism Refurbish'dAtomism and the Spring of Air Robert Boyle and Chemistry The Newtonian Reformation Newton and the Aether Hero on Air and the Vacuum9. The Problem of Incorporeals The Weighing of Fire 10. Chemistry Comes of Age The Natural History of the Inanimate Lavoisier's New System Oxygen versus Phlogiston Atomism becomes Scientific The Persistent Sceptics 11. The Classical Synthesis The Units of Matter Radiation and Fields of Force The Empire of Classical Physics Doubts and Reservations 12. Entering the Quantum World The Flaws in the Classical System 'Look First upon this Picture...' The Planetary Atom and its Paradoxes 13. Sharpening the Focus The Quantum-Mechanical Unification The Ramifications of Quantum Mechanisms Shadows of the Future? The Hierarchy of Forms Part III: The Structure of Life14. The Animal Machine Two Kinds of Mechanistic Physiology The Vitality of the Muscles Man, the Thinking Machine The Two Worlds Theories of Vitality Claude Bernard's New Method Bernard and the Problem of Development

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu